Contradições na Esquerda Latino-Americana

Something interesting has recently happened in Ecuador. There, the left government of Rafael Correa, which had won power initially with the support of the movements of the indigenous nations, subsequently came into sharp conflict with them. The most acute division was over the government’s wish to develop oil resources in an Amazonian protected reserve called Yasuni. Initially, the government ignored the protests of the indigenous inhabitants of the region. But then President Correa decided to champion an ingenious alternative. He proposed to the wealthy governments of the global North that, if Ecuador renounced any development in Yasuni, these wealthy governments should compensate Ecuador for this renunciation, on the grounds that this was a contribution to the world struggle against climate change. When this was first proposed at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, it was treated as being a fantasy. But after six long months of negotiations, five European governments (Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, and Sweden) have agreed to create a fund to be administered by the U.N. Development Program to pay Ecuador not to develop Yasuni on the grounds that this contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions. There is talk of inventing a new verb, yasunize, to denote such deals.